


Underneath my Skin There Is a Violence (It’s Got a Gun in Its Hand)

by aeveee



Category: Dredd (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-25
Updated: 2014-05-25
Packaged: 2018-01-26 12:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1688516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeveee/pseuds/aeveee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cassandra Anderson, orphan to Judge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Underneath my Skin There Is a Violence (It’s Got a Gun in Its Hand)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meteoritecrater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meteoritecrater/gifts).



> Title taken from ‘Bullets’ by Archive. 
> 
> Warning as I have not been exposed to anything from the Dredd universe other than the 2012 movie, comic-verse canon will probably be broken here.

It starts when she is six.

It’s a flash, a brief disorientation.

“Cassie?”

The voices are distant. There are reverberations and melted words and then they are gone. “Mama, I want to go back outside.”

“Come on, honey,” her mother says, arm warm around her small shoulders. “You have dirt all over you. Come in and take a bath.”

“I want to go back outside.”

The world is sharp now. There are no voices except her mother’s. “Honey, Papa will be back soon. You need to take a bath.”

It was just a flash. A brief, unexplained disorientation.

When her father returns, he picks her up in his arms and presses his face against the side of her head, squeezing her until she laughs. Her mother is warm against her back.

This is what she remembers. She is six.

She hears her father’s voice in her ear, but his lips never move.

—

They usually don’t let trainees keep personal items, but the photograph is almost sewn to her chest and they will have to peel her skin to take it away.

“Cassandra Anderson.”

The presiding Judge is stiff and broad. Cassandra is just nine. She is a slip of a girl.

“You will be given a list of tasks to complete within a set of scenarios. If you fail to complete these tasks, you will be returned to the orphanage. Do you understand?”

The photograph is hard, a shield lying over her heart.

“Yes, sir.”

The door opens and a line of teenagers wrapped in grey march in. Their faces are blank, muscles tight.

“To enter the Hall of Justice, you must first prove that you possess justice. Can you do this?”

This world is not the world she knew when she lived beside the Wall. This world begins to swim around her. The faces of the teenagers ringing her echo.

“Cassandra Anderson. I asked you a question.”

“Sir.”

She is nine. A slip of a girl. The teenagers have already decided that she will not be joining them; she can hear all the ways they are going to make sure it doesn’t happen. She turns to the boy to her right and fixes him with eyes the same brown as his. He is the youngest. The world shimmers where it touches his skin.

“Do you have justice, Cassandra Anderson?”

In the end, the answer will be no, but the teenagers – all except the boy with the brown eyes – will be in a corner, noses bleeding.

“That was not justice,” the presiding Judge growls, hoisting her up by her hair. Her eyes tear but she cannot make the world shimmer anymore. “You are a mutant.”

She remembers flashes.  _The girl is afraid of looming hands. The boy wants the Lawgiver but it kills him. There was one who tried to understand but went too deep. There was another who could not be touched and shattered._ The flashes are a consequence of the world she is in now, a reminder that things here are out of her control.

The Judge shakes her, and the photograph comes tumbling out of her shirt.

“What is this?”

It is creased from shaking fingers in dark nights, and the Judge is leaning down to reach for it. His gloves are dirty.

“No!”

The world cracks, just like the Judge’s nose. Her head throbs as she crawls to the photograph and she fumbles it between numb fingers, slipping it into her sleeve and backing away from the Judge who is screaming.

There are no flashes. There is blood and loud shots and explosions and cries for justice, but there is very little actual justice. She remembers her parents’ vacant faces in pools of red. She remembers what it is that is inside of her.

“I have justice in me, Judge.” Her hands are shaking but her face is hard and the world is sharply focused. She can hear the door behind her slamming open, the sound of heavy boots starting and stopping. “I have justice in me. Do you?”

She tells the Chief Judge that her parents died of cancer from the radiation behind the Wall. She does not tell her that there were bullets, and an anger that made the world change around her.

“Welcome to the Hall of Justice, Trainee Anderson.”

The photograph itches against the inside of her wrist.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

It begins.

—

It ends by a three point margin.

She has changed with time. She is an adult when the gang wars explode over Mega City One and the bloodshed accompanies her summons to the Chief Judge’s office.

“Trainee Anderson.”

She salutes. The uniform is heavy and stiff, rubs her skin raw every day. She dons it without complaint and notes the way the shield with the word _Trainee_  on it covers her heart. She keeps the photograph tucked against her wrist.

“Ma’am.”

The Chief Judge hasn’t changed. Still small and compact. Still deceptively soft in her eyes and her voice. The Chief Judge stares out the glass wall of her office at Mega City One, the sound of sirens wailing in the distance almost drowning out her words.

“Your initial candidate evaluation was unsatisfactory, Trainee Anderson. Were you aware of that?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

 “Your performance within the Academy has also been deemed unsatisfactory by many Judges who have presided over your training.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do you know why I have summoned you?”

The Chief Judge does not turn. Her back is silhouetted against a harsh sun.

“No, ma’am.”

“You failed your final assessment, Trainee Anderson.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I am going to instate you as a Rookie.” The Chief Judge turns. Her eyes are dark and hard as she asks, “Do you understand my reasoning for this, Trainee Anderson?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Try.”

This is the first time anyone has ever expressed permission. It feels foreign, and it makes the world shift a little faster, the flashes more vibrant.

Afterward, the Chief Judge lets a corner of her mouth quirk up. She wipes at her nose. There is no blood.

“Congratulations, Rookie Anderson. Welcome to the Department of Justice.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

They both know, as the Chief Judge turns away and she is summarily dismissed, that there is no reason to celebrate this.

Unsurprisingly, the Lawgiver sits heavy in her hands.

—

“Rookie.”

Dredd’s voice is gravel coated in blood. She can hear it bubble as she lowers her weapon and approaches him. There is a hole in his side.

“Minor injury. Requires basic field dressing.”

She watches with mild discomfort as Dredd sterilizes the wound and staples it shut. The flesh sticks together with a squelching sound and he stands, sharp frown covering a wince.

Peach Trees could have been a statistic she could change. It is a block just like the one she grew up in, grey, cold walls stained with human filth. The difference, here, is Ma-Ma. Dredd reloads his Lawgiver and motions for her to raise her weapon.

“Ready?”

She looks at the assault rifle in her hands. Even without reaching for it, she can feel the barely restrained rage shifting within Dredd. She remembers the face of the woman who is waiting for a husband she killed. Anger begins to coil in her, too.

“Yeah.”

Dredd grunts.

They exit the room together, and the hesitation and guilt and hope she feels sloughs off to leave only steady hands poised around a trigger. She feels calm. It is a sense of surety that hasn’t been in her since her mind awakened.

She remains emotionless as Ma-Ma breathes in the Slo-Mo and Dredd makes it rain glass.

—

“Cassandra Anderson.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Your assessment by Judge Dredd and your involvement in the Peach Trees incident has been reviewed by the Council. We have reached a ruling.”

Cassandra is still young. She is not solid yet, like Dredd. The faces of her parents still sit with her, and the world still shimmers where it touches other people. The Lawgiver is not so heavy in her hands though, and the armour is chafing less.

“We are pleased to inform you that you have been instated as Judge. Congratulations, Judge Anderson.”

Cassandra salutes. The photograph rubs against her wrist.

“Thank you, ma’am.”

This time, as Dredd nods at her in the hallway and she sees his approval in a brief image of her standing over him with the assault rifle and the corrupt Judge falling away, she knows that there is reason to celebrate.

She’ll do that after shift. For now, it’s her job to make a difference. 


End file.
